


Sand Dan & Other Tales

by Ashling



Category: Man Like Mobeen (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bisexual Mobeen Deen, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Matchmaking, jk i don't need anybodys forgiveness! its masterpiece! knifeblob, me @ the s3 finale: I am looking away. I do not see it, there's a lot of making out in this pls forgive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: "You've developed feelings for me, innit? It's fine, everyone does."Or, five times Mobeen Deen had a lovely date and a kiss + one time he didn't.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27
Collections: Robot Rainbow 2020





	Sand Dan & Other Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstlovelatespring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlovelatespring/gifts).



It all started with the Victory Cake. Aqsa had to make something for a group project about World War II, a recipe that could have been made during the rationing of milk, butter, and eggs. That would normally be fine, wouldn’t it, except of course she had to go and get herself into one of  _ the  _ most intricate, most balls-to-the-wall feuds that Mobeen had ever seen. And he’d been to fucking prison! These girls, man. He spent a good half hour genuinely trying, right, trying his best to make heads or tails of why Reem and Amirah were close friends, and Amirah was, like, basically decent, but Reem could go to hell, and Kayla was mad at Amirah, and Kayla had a  _ point  _ initially, right, but like, she went way too far with it, so now Kayla and Aqsa were on the outs even though Aqsa still kinda knew where she was coming from and would be willing to ceasefire if only Kayla would take her head out her arse and admit that…

It was at this point that Mobeen officially despaired of ever understanding what any of this had to do with baking a cake, and just started putting in a wise-sounding sprinkle of “ah, man,” and “that’s mad, that is” in the hopes that she wouldn’t realize the depth and breadth of his ignorance.

A war was being waged on the battlefield of the cake, that was the point of the story, and so Mobeen had three “practice” cakes on his hands. They were eggless, butterless, and, in his expert opinion, joyless, although he was careful not to mention that in Aqsa’s earshot, because he liked his balls  _ attached  _ to his body, thank you very much.

Made him feel guilty, though, giving away those chocolate-colored bricks when he knew what they tasted like. So when he dropped one off to Aunt Lydia, and she declared, before even saying hello, “I’m a small business owner, Mobeen!” he said, with a reckless disregard for his health, his sanity, and his purse: “Ah, that’s great news, innit. Steve Jobs of Small Heath, that’s you. And you know what? I would  _ love  _ to be your first customer.”

Instant regret. Instant. Even when Aunt Lydia was beaming like sunshine, and saying, “Really?” and Mobeen was saying “One hundred percent, tell me all about it,” he felt sure he was about to buy some unbelievably useless cooking device, or worse, a boat.

So really, a £11 monthly subscription to Aunt Lydia’s matchmaking service wasn’t so bad. It could have been worse. Mobeen wasn’t sure exactly how—he was, after all, gonna be spending his next few weekends disappointing a string of total strangers—but it could have been worse.

Probably.

He was so upset about the prospect of blind dating that he went straight home and ate one third of a Victory Cake without even noticing that it still tasted like absolute shit.

He met his first blind date in the park. He could've told Aunt Lydia that it was a terrible idea for a grown man to hang around a park looking at every passing woman to see if she was looking for him, and basically begging to be arrested, but Aunt Lydia just said that Mother Nature was very conducive to romance. And Mobeen couldn’t really argue, could he, ‘cause it wasn’t like he knew what romance was. He knew what women were, technically, and he even kinda knew what being with a woman was like, cause back in the day with the clubs and the bottles and the...well, it all got paid for, and everybody seemed to have a good time, but that was a far cry from where he was now, huddled against a brisk wind, pretending to text and hoping like mad that the next thing he heard was not a jovial, “Moonbeam! You pervert! I should’ve known it was you,” from a smirking cop who would definitely ruin his date.

He was so wound up that when he heard, “Mobeen?” his immediate response was to jerk up from his phone with a panicked “Wasn’t…”

Oh. Oh, all right, he knew her. Suhair, somebody or other’s relative, who he’d been introduced to at Cousin Faisal’s wedding last year. She was maybe five years older than him, petite and bright-eyed and wearing what appeared to be a massive stripey pink knit dress, the sort of thing that screamed,  _ I know my way around a ball of yarn! and subtlety is for losers! _ Mobeen was surprised at how pleased he was to see her.

“Assalamualaikum,” he said, and instantly destroyed all his good work thus far by holding out his hand to shake, like they were two real estate agents about to negotiate a deal. 

Suhair shook his hand cheerfully, and said, “Five quid says our personalities don’t match at all, and we’re the only single Muslims who subscribed.”

“Yeah, why did we do that again? Eleven a month, and we could’ve just linked up through the Aunty Network for free.”

“Oh, you did it of your own free will? Weirdo,” she said blithely. Suddenly Mobeen felt right at home. “My mum got the subscription for me. For my thirtieth birthday. That, and a pair of five-pound weights.”

“God _ damn! _ ”

“I know!” She laughed. “Nobody does it like your mum, right?”

“Mums are straight savage, man. My mum could make an internationally wanted drug dealer cry himself to sleep.” For one enjoyable second, Mobeen imagined Uncle Khan doing just that.

“I bet. Listen, I’m sorry I’m late. I would’ve made it five minutes early, but there was a cat over by the swing set, and I got distracted.”

“Did you say a cat?”

“Yeah, why?”

Mobeen couldn’t help being Mobeen. “Was it the orange one? With the white belly?” he said, hopefully. “The really fat one?”

“No, it was grey, with a little stub of a tail.” Suhair looked at him, hard, and then sighed. “You wanna go see the cat, don’t you.”

Mobeen was aware he looked like a kid looking in a candy store, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “I do, yeah.”

“All right,” Suhair said, indulgently. “Let’s go.”

They spent five minutes walking to the cat, forty minutes petting (and, to be honest, talking to) the cat, and fifteen minutes eating ice cream, whereupon Suhair said, “Can’t get any better than fudge-chunk caramel, so I’m going. You’re cute, Mobeen, I’ll see you around.” And kissed him, on the cheek, and then he was just gawping at a pink shape moving away from him with a decidedly jaunty step.

Whatever he had been expecting from the date, it had not been that, and he was bewildered to discover that he might have actually had fun.

He might even be looking forward to the next one.


End file.
